Cookies

Thursday, 30 March 2017

A few weeks ago Tom and I took a trip to London for a long weekend as a late anniversary getaway. Originally we had planned to go to Europe but flights were too expensive, and then we tried Ireland but hotels were too expensive, disneyland was discussed but that was definitely too expensive, and I was at a bit of a loss of where to go so had a look at London hotels and hoorah we found somewhere! We stayed out at Wembley which was about a 20 minute tube ride away and had a jam packed weekend.
On arriving we made our way from St. Pancras to King's Cross to have our photo taken at Platform 9 3/4. I was having a crisis in the queue as to which house scarf to choose but accepted my fate as a Hufflepuff and Tom was a Slytherin. I liked that you could take your own photos alongside the professional photographer but we bought a copy of the photo of us both together - look at that wand alignment!

After making our way to our hotel, we got to sit down for about 20 minutes before we needed to set off to Canary Wharf to meet up with our old housemate (what a fancy man). I felt like I was in an episode of Suits walking around Canary Wharf and I like the idea of working there but don't think I would enjoy the reality! After a meal out together we made our way back, thoroughly exhausted and ready for bed.

On the Saturday we did some sightseeing in the morning and then went to see Phantom of the Opera in the West End. Phantom is up there with our favourite musicals and it was wonderful to see it live. We popped into the National Gallery afterwards so I could see some of my favourites, and then we went for a meal at Giraffe. Although it was cold out, we sat outside and were wrapped in blankets which I really loved the concept of!

By the time Sunday came around I was exhausted from the weekend! We took the tube to South Kensington and had a wander round the Science museum and the Natural History museum. I loved looking at all of the townhouses around the area - they're so pretty but I could never afford to live in one of them.

It had been quite a while since Tom and I had taken a trip to London and I always enjoy myself when I go. I think it's a great city to visit if you don't want to spend too much because of all the free things there is to do. I love going away and there's loads of choices for weekends away in the UK that more people should take advantage of!

Tuesday, 7 March 2017

We had a coffee morning at work last week and as my contribution I made these 'chocolate jammie biscuits' and they went so well and tasted so yummy that I had to share the recipe with you! The recipe comes from the most recent Tesco magazine, and they are super easy to make. The magazine said this recipe would make 8 biscuits but I ended up making 19 so I don't know if my cookie cutter is a lot smaller than theirs!

You will need:

100g butter

75g caster sugar

175g plain flour

25g cocoa powder

2 tbsp milk

Filling:

Jam of choice

50g butter

100g icing sugar

Line two baking sheets with baking paper

Cream together the butter and caster sugar with an electric whisk

Sift the cocoa powder and flour into the mixture and combine with a wooden spoon. Add in enough milk until the mixture forms a soft dough (you will need to get your hands in to mould it together)

Preheat the oven to 200C/392F/GM6

Knead the dough and then roll out on a floured surface

Cut out your shapes - make sure you have two per biscuit - and place on your baking sheets

Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until slightly firm - I placed one baking sheet on the top shelf and one on the middle and swapped them round half way through

Take the biscuits out of the oven and leave to cool completely on a wire rack

Once the biscuits have completely cooled you can make your icing!

Cream together the butter and the icing sugar, and if you need to make it come together just add a splash of milk

Taking two biscuits at a time, spread the icing on one side and your jam of choice on the other (I personally used strawberry)

Sandwich your two biscuits together and repeat on the rest!

Store the biscuits in an airtight container and you're good to go! As always if you have a go at making these please let me know, and let me know what you think of them. Having not used this recipe before I was really impressed with how they turned out and I know that I will definitely be making them again!